


Always a Way Out

by silverjewelkitten



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode Fix-It: s07e05 The Angels Take Manhattan, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-22
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-05 19:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1830295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverjewelkitten/pseuds/silverjewelkitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor grieves in a Manhattan Cemetery, and River remembers that there is always a choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Choice

The Doctor is grieving, she knows, and she steps forward to lie a hand on his shoulder as he breaks. Amy and Rory are gone forever, neither of them will be able to see them again without ripping apart the world they fought so hard to save. And yet, in some abstract sense she knows that there is another way to see them.

 

By the way the Doctor shivers she knows he’s thinking the same thing. She gives him this moment to grieve, keeping her eyes on the angel and her hand clutching at his chest. She’s seen him cry before and will certainly see it again.

"Doctor." She whispers, bending onto her knees to hold him, never moving her eyes from the angel that took Amy and Rory away. "There is another way. We could see them again. Time can be rewritten."

 

He laughs, hollow. “In all my years, I’ve never been able to prove the truth of that. No matter how hard I try or how many lives I save, they always leave, and I can’t stop it.” He takes a shaky breath, “Eventually I’ll lose you too.” He looks at her, and she stubbornly cannot look back at him, no matter how much he’s hurting.

"We could be with them."

"We can’t."

 

"It would be so easy."  
"River." Always, chastising.

 

"Doctor, you have to make a choice."   
"Yes, okay. What about the tardis?"   
"She’ll be fine."

 

"River you and I don’t age like humans do, someone’s bound to notice."  
"We’ll manage."

 

"What about the travelling? I can’t stay in one place for that long, River, I’ll go mad."  
"Who says we can’t travel? Lots of digs to see, places to go."  
"Right. Well then, wife, what are you waiting for?" he says, with a lopsided grin.

"Oh, shut up." She says, pushing him.   
She blinks.

 

They open their eyes in New York, seated on a park bench. Amy and Rory are not ten feet away, holding onto each other like they’ll never let go.

 

"Mummy dear, " River starts, "Any idea where I can pick up a change of clothes?"

 

Amy startles and the Ponds run to embrace her, nearly squeezing the life out of her and the Doctor. “Welcome home.” They say, and for once, it rings true.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's April 22nd, and the Doctor has a surprise.

River wakes up at the crack of dawn. Years after he pardon and she’s still unable to break prison schedule. It feels strange to have a proper bed in a proper house where one wakes up and prepares for work, always having to take the slow route. But today is Saturday, and no one works on Saturdays.

“Sweetie?” River calls out, not yet opening her eyes as she feels around in the sheets and finds him gone. She sighs and accepts the fact that she’ll have to get out of bed. She hears a shout from the other room and instinctually and gracefully rolls out of her blanket cocoon.

She hurries in the direction of the noise, feet pattering on the hard-wood floor. She rounds the corner and finds herself in the kitchen doorway, and just inside there is the Doctor, nursing a burned finger over a plate of steaming pancakes.

“River.” He starts, “I was just about to bring you breakfast in bed. Always wanted to do that.” She quirks an eyebrow, and leans back against the doorframe. She yawns and stretches her arms over head.

“Having a bit of trouble, dear?” He gives her a pitiful look and extends his thumb, pink and blistered at the tip. “Aww, poor darling, would you like me to kiss it better?” She says, mockingly.

“That’s really rude!” He says, feigning indignation.  
She sidles close to him and leans up for a kiss. “Oh.” He says, trying to decide where to put his hands. “Good morning.” She rolls her eyes and kisses him slow and chaste.

She pulls away and breathes a deep inhale. “That smells amazing.” He grins like a child and shows her his creation: an artful arrangement of perfectly crisped pancake batter and strawberry syrup.

“Heart shaped pancakes?” She laughs, but feels warm nonetheless. 

“Two hearts!” She looks back down and laughs again. “No but River, there’s two hearts.” She concurs, there is indeed two hearts. He brings her hand to his chest and then to her own, “Like you and I!” She full on snorts, nearly doubling over in laughter.

“Is it Valentine’s day?” She asks, feeling out of sync with time. 

“Nope.”

“My birthday?”

“Nope.”

“Then what day is it?”

“April 22nd.” She bristles a little and feels a pang of guilt. 

“The day I killed the Doctor.”

“The day you married me.” She quirks her mouth at that and the Doctor kisses her cheek lovingly. “Our anniversary! And don’t you go anywhere Professor Song because I have lots planned.”

“You have a plan? Ha, there is a first time for everything.” He flicks her nose in retaliation, and she yanks the plate of pancakes from him.   
They scoot the dining room chairs close together and eat in relative silence, only broken by chewing and the occasional kiss, until, “How many years does this one make?” She asks, curiously, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin.

“I’ve lost count.” The Doctor admits, laughing. “It’s over three hundred, easily.” They both laugh at their old age, picking silly fights just because they can. 

There’s a dig happening in Egypt, and if the Doctor surprises her with an invitation to join the crew excavating at Tanis despite his hatred of archaeology, no one has to know but them. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t groan at the inaccuracies of hieroglyph translations.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> House-warming, or lack thereof.

Linear time passed slowly, languidly, like the cool drops of condensation forming on a glass. It had been three weeks since they were first greeted by the teary faces of Amy and Rory, (though it felt like years, sometimes) and already the Doctor was itching to go somewhere and to do something, anything, to keep his mind off of the slowly ticking clock and the treacherous normality of the everyday.

At first the answer had seemed simple, the solution glaring and obvious. They had blinked and allowed themselves to be sent back, and the Doctor had not felt shame or regret for his decision. He had promised to take care of them, after all, and though the Doctor may have had difficulty keeping promises in the past, he was not the type to break them carelessly.

This slowness and pervasive calm was unnerving, however, and he found himself fidgeting with nervous apprehension. River hummed a discordant melody, unloading kitchen wares into various cabinets “River?” The Doctor called out, peeking around the corner to spy on her. “Could you make us a spot of tea?” She merely nodded and continued with her chore.

Amy’s legs were sprawled across Rory’s lap as they read the morning news, and sunlight glinted off of her ginger hair. Their new apartment and subsequent house-warming a la River and the Doctor was temporarily postponed, as the temperature was spiking unseasonably high. They didn’t have many things yet, as Rory was only just able to get a nursing position at the local hospital with the help of the Doctor’s psychic paper, and Amy was busy finding purchase as a columnist. Money, for the time being, was very tight, and tensions were near the breaking point.

The Doctor rubbed his hands together, sparing a look towards the kitchen, where River was preparing tea, her trench coat thrown over the back of a dining room chair. The table itself lay in pieces on the floor, practically begging for assembly. The Doctor took a glance at Amy and she met his eyes over the edges of her paper. “Go on.” She mouthed, and winked in his direction.

He stepped timidly around the bend and stood back from her, watching her busy her hands with simple work. “River,” he started quietly, “Are you happy here?” She looked up at him and her humming ceased. They have not yet had the time to speak of it, since they came to New York, and though he was restless, he felt more at home than he had in a long time.

“Not always.” She answered, honestly. “Most of the time it feels unreal, that is, to be on the same page for once. “ His face fell a little, and she perked right up, laughing a bit. “What’s the matter with you? If you hadn’t noticed we’re all still alive. That’s what matters. Happiness is a conditional state, Doctor. It can’t stay all the time.”

He took a desperate few steps towards her, guilty and downtrodden. “Do you regret it?” They were speaking quietly so as not to disturb Amy and Rory, and he felt inexplicably like he had done something very, very wrong.

“No.” She handed him a cardboard box just as the kettle started to scream, “But if you don’t start helping I might begin to!” He struggled with the weight of it, setting it down onto the counter. His hair flopped into his face and he hastened to push it back. He was struck all over again with how far she would go for him. River Song, with her soft curly hair and her red louboutins, would go to the ends of the Universe for him, perhaps one day they will go. He leaned forward and left a lingering kiss to her cheek.

She poured four teacups full of steaming tea and set them out on a tray with sugar and cream before straightening his bowtie. He offered to carry the platter into the other room and she playfully batted at his shoulder. “Wouldn’t want you to burn yourself, sweetie.”

  
She pecked his mouth and stepped around him, tray clattering. She mumbled something to her parents in the other room, and they laughed, probably at the Doctor’s expense. He smiled from the kitchen, and began unpacking the boxes.

Tomorrow he would build the dining room table, and maybe make it sonic.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aliens in New York.

New York City, New York, 1932, 3:00 p.m  
It had been a really ordinary day, considering the lack of ordinary a life with the Doctor generally entailed. River had taught a class at the local University on the fall of Rome, ending with an anecdotal fairytale of a Lone Centurion and the box he defended for centuries. The Doctor had accidentally invented the microchip decades early, and they had both gotten lunch together at a little Polish deli, and then the sky had opened up with battleships.

Okay, so maybe it was a mistake to expect that their lives could be normal. And maybe it was a mistake to think that just because they were in 1930’s America, that there wouldn’t be aliens. A time Lord in one place for more than a few days was bound to draw in some unwanted notice.   
A few hours later, she was brandishing a gun for the first time in nearly a year, and trying her damndest not to use it if she didn’t have to. She had had almost a year to lose touch with the traveling and to become domestic, but oh she had missed it.

However, that did not mean that River was any more motivated to spend half the afternoon knee deep in the Voord equivalent of sewage because someone decided to send out a sonic pulse that rippled through the entire fleet. “River, I have to broaden the parameters to search for life signs!” She said, mockingly, treading with her skirt drawn above the knee so that she wouldn’t ruin it.

“Oi, how was I supposed to know that their pipes were compromised?” She rolled her eyes at him and stalked forward in the muck, vowing to make him pay for it later. “Amy, Rory? Are you close?”

Hearing nothing, they continued silently down the flooded corridor, the occasional buzz of the sonic marking the passage of time. “Sweetie,” River began, after a while, “Do you feel that?”

“Yes.” He answered, “Something isn’t right. These tunnels are too quiet.” She nodded, wishing for a torch to navigate the curving labyrinth of corridors. She feels his hand slide into hers as they walk, an instinctual and protective gesture; always ready to run if need be.

“It’s getting brighter.” River said, “There’s something up ahead.” And then a siren buzzed, deafening, as they crossed the threshold of a lighted room. A blaring computerized voice announced their arrival.

“STATE RANK AND INTENT.”

“Rank: Doctor, intent: answers.” They both said, in tune. 

“INTRUDERS DESIGNATED DOCTOR. INTENT INVALID. INCINERATE.” The Doctor grabbed tightly onto her hand and they ran out, both laughing.

“Having fun yet, Doctor Song?” He asked, the room they were previously in lit up in flames, shrapnel flying behind them.

“Love the running.” She said, narrowly dodging a falling beam. She looked at him, her Doctor, both of them blessedly and impossibly on the same page for once, and hoped the running never stopped.

Standing in front of the burning wreckage a while later, River spoke. "Those ships had the equipment necessary to build a Tardis." She looked up at him, his face singed and his hair slicked back with sweat. Surely he had thought about it, building a ship and flying away; leaving New York behind. Letting go.

"I know." He answered, and they stared on at the towering inferno, hands clasped tight. Sometime later, he sniffled and she did not look at him for shame. 

"They would forgive you, Doctor. They would understand." 

"I don't want to leave." The Doctor told her, a smile just barely there on his face. "I think maybe, I finally want to stay."


End file.
